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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “all in one wp migration”

wp.org orders by popularity, so a plugin a host bundled onto millions of sites, or a big-brand one that's slow and mediocre, can sit at the top. Our ranking is built to answer a different question: which of these is actually worth installing. How this works →

For “all in one wp migration”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 3 of the top 20.

wp.org search ranks on

Install count (uncapped), the raw star average, freshness, and support. Popularity dominates, so the biggest install base usually wins regardless of how it got there.

We add

A cap on the install boost, volume-weighted ratings, and signals wp.org can't see: whether the install base is organic or host-pushed, and its risk of being pulled.

Ranked above its merit

WebToffee WP Backup and Migration shows at wp.org #12 but places #20 on merit, a gap of 8 places. Its 5K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.5★ average from 49 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

How this rank is calculated

Each plugin's merit score multiplies these inputs together: how recently it was updated, how current its "tested up to" WordPress version is, its install base (log scale, capped at 10 million), its support thread resolution rate, and a rating score. The rating score weights the star average by review volume against a sitewide prior, then scales it by the lower bound of the share of 4 and 5 star reviews. A plugin with 3.7 stars from tens of thousands of reviews can still outscore a 4.9 with a few dozen, because the small sample carries less certainty.

A health factor between 0.4 and 1.15 then adjusts that score for what wp.org's search can't see: PHP fatals or failed activations on a test install, PHP and WordPress compatibility, memory and page-speed footprint, suspicious review patterns, closure risk, and a large install base with very few reviews. Clean, adopted plugins earn a small lift.

A keyword ranking starts from wp.org's search order for the term, weighting each position by 1 divided by its place, then applies the merit correction and health factor above. Relevance to the keyword stays in the result, so the order can differ from the all-categories list on /best, which scores plugins with no search term.

Hover a row to see the main reason for its position.

merit plugin wp.org
1 All-in-One WP Migration and Backup 5M+ · 4.5★ (7,676) wp.org #1 2 All-In-One Security (AIOS) – Security and Firewall 1M+ · 4.7★ (1,720) wp.org #2 3 UpdraftPlus: WP Backup & Migration Plugin 4M+ · 4.8★ (8,713) wp.org #3 4 WP STAGING – Backups & Restore, Migration & Clone Plugin – Cloud Backups, Scheduled Backups 100K+ · 4.8★ (2,471) wp.org #4 5 Duplicator – Backups & Migration Plugin – Cloud Backups, Scheduled Backups, & More 1M+ · 4.9★ (4,940) wp.org #5 6 WP Mail SMTP by WPForms – SMTP for Reliable Email Delivery with Gmail, Outlook, Amazon SES, Brevo, Other SMTP & More 4M+ · 4.8★ (5,211) wp.org #6 ↑1 7 WPvivid — Backup, Migration & Staging 900K+ · 4.9★ (1,571) wp.org #7 ↓1 8 Migrate Guru – Site Migration & Cloning 200K+ · 4.9★ (1,645) wp.org #9 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 9 WP Fastest Cache – WordPress Cache Plugin 1M+ · 4.9★ (4,230) wp.org #8 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 10 Backup Migration 80K+ · 4.9★ (1,338) wp.org #11 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 11 WP-Optimize – Cache, Compress images, Minify & Clean database to boost page speed & performance 1M+ · 4.8★ (2,617) wp.org #10 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 12 WP Store Locator 40K+ · 4.8★ (312) wp.org #15 wp.org ranks it 3 places below merit 13 BackWPup – WordPress Backup & Restore Plugin 400K+ · 4.0★ (1,323) wp.org #13 ↓1 14 WP 2FA – Two-factor authentication for WordPress 100K+ · 4.7★ (184) wp.org #14 ↑4 15 SEOPress – AI SEO Plugin & On-site SEO 300K+ · 4.8★ (1,268) wp.org #23 wp.org ranks it 8 places below merit 16 WP Migrate Lite – Migration Made Easy 200K+ · 4.2★ (318) wp.org #16 ↑1 17 WP Statistics – Simple, privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative 500K+ · 4.1★ (760) wp.org #17 ↓4 18 WP Activity Log 300K+ · 4.7★ (490) wp.org #21 wp.org ranks it 3 places below merit 19 FluentSMTP – WP Mail SMTP Plugin with Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Cloudflare, toSend, Gmail and Any SMTP 700K+ · 4.8★ (412) wp.org #19 ↓3 20 WebToffee WP Backup and Migration 5K+ · 4.5★ (49) wp.org #12 ↑2 wp.org ranks it 8 places above merit 21 Export All URLs 50K+ · 4.6★ (94) wp.org #18 ↑3 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit 22 Jetpack – AI Agents & MCP, Security, Backup & Analytics 3M+ · 3.7★ (2,409) wp.org #20 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 23 WP-PageNavi 400K+ · 4.7★ (149) wp.org #22 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 24 Pressable Automated Migration 4K+ · 5.0★ (10) wp.org #24

Merit ranking caps the install boost at 10M (wp.org leaves it uncapped), replaces the raw star average with a volume-weighted score and a Wilson lower bound, and keeps wp.org's own freshness and compatibility decays. Method from the plugin-directory source; see Meta Trac #8298. Positions are tracked daily from the first visit to a keyword, so the small arrows show movement since tracking began.